Missionary speaks about child who didn't want to go home from camp

by Daisy Rodriguez, student news writer, Office of University Communications

Campbellsville, KY (09/30/2021) — "I don't want to go home. I never knew what the word peace meant, until this week."

Stan Meador, team leader for the International Mission Board's South Brazil Team, spoke at Campbellsville University's chapel about a young boy who went on a mission trip in Indiana who learned what peace was.

The boy was hiding in the woods because he didn't want to go home.

Meador said his team was able to focus on worshipping God and telling the youngsters stories from Scriptures and having sports and activities with them.

"And on the last day, we were getting everyone back into the neighborhood they live in, and we couldn't find one of the boys and we started looking everywhere for this boy. Finally, somebody finds him, and he was hiding in the woods, and he just said, 'I don't want to go home. I never knew what the word peace meant, until this week.'

"And that's the kind of difference that he was able to see this week that there is more to life than the situation he is in," Meador said.

"And every year at the beginning of the tutoring center, we actually ask the kids to either write or draw of what their dreams are. It's sad because they don't have dreams. They live in a situation where they really can't see a way out," he said.

Meador has led the South Brazil Team for approximately a year. In that role, he supervises international church planters in the Southern Brazil states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Parana.

He has also served as an associate cluster leader with International Mission Board (IMB), where he helped lead mission work in South America, Canada and Australia for nine years.

Meador said other aspects of ministry in which they have been involved are house church, work with small group ministries and Bible studies with people.

"We ask universal questions and use the scriptures to answer them," he said. "We talk about what the text is telling us about God."

Meador has earned both a Master of Divinity in 2000 and a Master of Theology in 2017 from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville. He also earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Northeastern State University in 1992.

Meador and his wife, Wendy, a 1989 graduate of Campbellsville College, have one daughter, Ariana "Ri", who is a sophomore at Campbellsville University.

Campbellsville University is a widely acclaimed Kentucky-based Christian university with more than 12,500 students offering over 100 programs of studying including Ph.D., master, baccalaureate, associate, pre-professional and certification programs. The website for complete information is www.campbellsville.edu.

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